’They’ll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they’ll be rubbed raw,’ said Fred with satisfaction.

J.K. Rowling -- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The grindstone, pestle and mortar were too heavy to take; in any case my daughter-in-law would be providing these.

Kamala Markandaya -- Nectar in a Sieve

After grinding a number of dull blades,—of whom it was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had left the Grindstone,—he had wearied of that poor work and had come to London.

Charles Dickens -- Great Expectations

...come, turn this grindstone.

Frederick Douglass -- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

His day of recreation and relaxation, his chance to escape from the grindstone, the break he earned after five days at the bank, the kind of day he needed.

Nicholas Sparks -- The Choice

Dianne is like a waterfall of spark pouring off a sharp iron edge that God is holding to the grindstone.

Patrick Rothfuss -- The Name of the Wind

Timothy said that the sand in the sea water acted like a grindstone on the sharp edges of the coral.

Theodore Taylor -- The Cay

Frank Sinatra is The Singing Marshmallow, Betty Hutton is The Human Grindstone.

Margaret Atwood -- Cat’s Eye

I would have happily chopped off the heads of a barrel full of eels to escape another afternoon trapped with men whose voices droned on and on and on like rumbling, dusty grindstones.

Laurie Halse Anderson -- Chains

"The beasts ha’ such a thick coat, the cold’s no hindrance to them," he explained, sharpening a spearpoint with enthusiasm against a foot-driven grindstone, "and they feel safe wi’ the mist so heavy all round them—canna see the men coming toward them, ye ken."

Diana Gabaldon -- Outlander

A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a silvery dust.

James Hurst -- The Scarlet Ibis

No, now that he had arrived, he must keep his nose to the grindstone.

Agatha Christie -- And Then There Were None

There’s going to be more work than I can handle with my new grindstones.

Christopher Paolini -- Eragon

Then you must tell ’em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch.

Zora Neale Hurston -- Their Eyes Were Watching God

We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!

H.G. Wells -- The Time Machine

Near by him men sat bending over whirling grindstones, putting the finishing touches to the steel knives of the reaper; picking them out of a basket with the right hand, pressing first one side and then the other against the stone and finally dropping them with the left hand into another basket.

Upton Sinclair -- The Jungle

Horns cracked out in the darkening stillness; grindstones screeched.

John Gardner -- Grendel

She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past.

Charles Dickens -- David Copperfield

For the present, we had barely time to get something to eat and hurry into the boat, where were collected our new acquisitions, namely, a copper boiler, iron plates, tobacco-graters, two grindstones, a small barrel of powder, and another of flints, two wheelbarrows besides Jack’s, which he kept under his own especial care.

Johann Wyss -- The Swiss Family Robinson

Flush with the wood was the apple orchard, where blossom was falling on the grindstone.

Now you know;’ here his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; ’I can see as far into a grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I had my nose well kept to it when I was young.

Charles Dickens -- Hard Times

Cainy Ball turned the handle of Gabriel’s grindstone, his head performing a melancholy see-saw up and down with each turn of the wheel.

Thomas Hardy -- Far from the Madding Crowd

There were pikes to be ground to a fine edge, so that the grindstones in the town were roaring day and night—there were thousands of arrows to be dressed, so that there were lights in the fletchers’ houses at all hours—and the unfortunate geese on the commons were continually being chased by excited yeomen who wanted feathers.

T. H. White -- The Once and Future King

Kept his nose to the grindstone and sold one bottle of snake oil too many.

Eugene O’Neill -- The Iceman Cometh

When we rolled forward the wheels creaked and bit out sparks like grindstones, and the couplings played free and hooked tight in a mechanical game into which your observation and brain were forced.

Saul Bellow -- The Adventures of Augie March

I hear the rush of the great grindstone within an inch of my head.

Virginia Woolf -- The Waves

It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge.

Jack London -- Sea Wolf

"Keeps your nose to the grindstone," Tyler said, grinning.

John Ringo -- Live Free or Die

Someone in the arbor was using a grindstone, hidden by the propped branches of willow still shaggy with dry leaves.

Ouida Sebestyen -- Words by Heart

I was damn well going to see a little of Europe before I applied nose to grindstone; another such chance might never come.

Robert A. Heinlein -- Glory Road

I would see (after Thoby’s death) two great grindstones (as I walked round Gordon Square) and myself between them.

Virginia Woolf -- A Sketch of the Past

The workshop was arrived at by a step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for the large grindstone where tools were sharpened.

Charles Dickens -- Little Dorrit

Though the wheels were moving, Roran could tell they were disengaged from the complex arrangement of gears hidden inside the buildings, for he did not hear the rumble of the grindstones turning in their places.

Christopher Paolini -- Inheritance

…drilling holes in the pavement, knocking down trees to make room for telephone poles, knocking down telephone poles to make room for buildings, knocking down buildings to plant trees; a blockade of itinerant vendors hawking the wonders of this grindstone, that toasted peanut, this little doll that dances by itself without a single wire or thread, look for yourself, run your hand over it; a whirlwind of garbage dumps, food stands, factories, cars hurtling into carriages and sweat-drawn…

Isabel Allende -- The House of Spirits

Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate:—good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.

William Shakespeare -- Romeo and Juliet

II The Grindstone.

Charles Dickens -- A Tale of Two Cities

The very grindstone ’ull go on turning a bit after you loose it."

George Eliot -- Adam Bede

But since I know the passions of the mapifiers I can report that I moved north in Maine roughly parallel to U.S. Highway 1 through Houlton, Mars Hill, Presque Isle, Caribou, Van Buren, turned westward, still on U.S. 1, past Madawaska, Upper Frenchville, and Fort Kent, then went due south on State Highway 11 past Eagle Lake, Winterville, Portage, Squa Pan, Masardis, Knowles Corner, Patten, Sherman, Grindstone, and so to Millinocket.

John Steinbeck -- Travels with Charley

It warn’t no slouch of an idea; and it warn’t no slouch of a grindstone nuther; but we allowed we’d tackle it.